Magpie
If only I could soar like an eagle
to see the world as I cannot.
I am a magpie in black and white,
in flight through clouds,
seeking colour.
I am nosy, noisy, restless, bothered by life.
I pick up the pieces.
The Three Moustache Tree
At the head of Keir it sits
facing clockwork gyrations
of cars: numbers untold.
It beams a hidden sentinel:
our custodian of mans’
faceless technology.
It stands tall as a cavalry officer saluting;
or as absurd as an upside-down clown on parade.
Or Perhaps a classic screen Idol:
with everyday growth trimmed, waxed, and svelte.
Its moustached face has ups, downs and in-betweens:
hiding a third of no soul.
It has no chlorophyll.
Yet it is strangely alive in the green
and beckons Dunblane home to an odd reassurance.
Poems need to offer space
I am no more
SERIES II, than you were
SERIES I.
Much space of time has passed between us:
grandson and grandfather.
Each year, new gardeners will sow
sweet peas
and bairns will still run towards them
as I once did when arriving at Drumdruils:
the scent and colour of you.
I like it when you call me Mr Scott
Scottish Chapter Prize:
EGOs get in the way of being true.
I was awarded every award
in my post-medical landscape.
But awards are not signs
to be posted on maps.
and I am not an architect of any landscape.
Let nature in.
Being with you is like being in this fantastic landscape
He looked at her, and she smiled.
She laughed her seventeen-year-old laugh.
That brief smile that afternoon.
Doing words
Montaigne, I am struggling
in my un-doing as a doctor.
Gardeners are dooers and do not retire.
And nature is more than the soil in which everything grows.
There are so many words for doing.
[Let me be sensitive]
The mainstream is not for me!
No wonder that this ancient rebel
will win no award
that he would not want.
I am a ‘Scottish Chapter’.
Recorded on a bit of faded paper,
a typewritten insert that was glued –
without feel – to a book
on waterfalls.
B E I N G [and let me be sensitive about this]
– is more than a sum –
between the ‘MAINSTREAM’ and me.
I could write essays [on just about anything] but I began here
Sian
An Electric Razor: Donated.
A fading Classic scene,
– cottage style:
in a bristly commercial woodland.
South Milton cottage,
yesterday, I visited you.
I had travelled far North to be with you
and over the horizon
the late Spring light was disappearing with the sun.
The Acanthus leaves that you hand moulded
in concrete
are still there –
as your Doric pillars reach for the sky.
The woodland is dark now –
but your ARCADIA still brings magical light.
The Atmosphere.
Jist aifter lunch, on the first day of a new year,
ootside yer front door
you suddenly drapped deid.
John Glennie,
as the shepherd o’ Lochrie
you had woken each day o’ yer lang life
in this place and
felt,
seen,
and experienced,
it’s wunnerfu’ness.
Naebody aiver found a hame for that
Highlan’ Ewe that found its way tae Lochrie
In the Spring of 1864
Aifter ye had gan [gan an deed]
Yer son Sandy
gae an illustrated talk to the
Strathdon Mutual Improvement Society.
He ca’d his talk ‘The Atmosphere’.
The sounds of the Garrel
Vairy early on a spring morning,
the year afore last –
I went luikin in the Kilsyth foothills for a God.
In the Garrel Glen,
a journey into experience began.
The early morning light wis wunnerfu’ –
luminous without being fierce.
I luiked fa’ a lang time,
fa this God –
realising with every step [and breath taken]
that I had hardly begun tae see!
I gaither that the Kilsyth Wayfarers’
used to ramble here.
I came across several o’ them
in a churchyard withoot a church.
Wan broken tombstone aifter anither.
Yesterday,
I returned tae the Garrel wi’ my friend:
‘airmed’ wi’ new fangled gear
and satellite coordinates [for the God’s heid].
Bit, alas, we cud find nae carved God!
It wis then that we came across a shepherd,
gaithering his flock.
He telt us to ask his wife –
fa she wud guide us.
Whit a wunnerfu place she led us tae.
It wis here in dappled, gentle light,
that we met a maist fierce luikin God!
On the same rock face
my friend spotted yer
G R A F F I T IO.
[I hud hairdly begun tae see!]
Here ye carved yer name, date, and hame toon.
That year wis 1892,
an yer hame, Kilsyth.
I noo ken,
thanks tae a’ the new fangled stuff
– o’ which my time noo benefits –
that ye were born, an deid, Kilsyth.
1892.
How yer life changed.
That wis the year you married Margaret.
Yer parents did not live to celebrate this special day –
yer mam dying the year afore.
Peter, yer brither, a policeman –
wis much respecktit in Kilsyth.
A photograph o’ him in uniform survives –
I wunner if you luiked like him?
Yer childhood wis spent by the Garrel burn.
From Charles Street and Duntreath Terrace –
you had tae cross the footbridge to get tae
school.
That footbridge is still there,
an leads tae
the war memorial and
bandstand.
Music still plays.
I cannae see it.
But I hear it!
The sounds of the Garrel.
This was not NEWS!
See for miles,
all the way hence
If you can!
Wander for miles,
all the way hence
whenever you can!
After all this activity,
Ruichlachrie
has cleared a way just for you!
So wander, wonder, and be yersel’.
NOTE: Ruichlachrie is in Glen Bruar. It was once a croft but in recent times was turned into a pile of clearance stones. It was at Ruichlachrie that I had my unexpected seizure on the last day of 2021.
“The Blairgowrie Junior berrypickers weigh-in-lottery”
Back in the land of the Jeely makkers
I feel braw!
Saft-fruit is ripening now
orchard-to-orchard.
A lifetime on from Drumdruills
and I am a hundred-punnets short of
sanity.
But I am happy [SERIES II].
Take me to the river
mid-thought
mid-dash.
No need to find a crossing
As my love for you needs neither
ford nor bridge.
Take me to the river,
mid-thought
mid-dash.
Come back the earth
[endlessly] I was stravaiging in the wrang gear!
an auld fairmer revealed this
to me!
Back came my Grumpa
in his SERIES II!
In my waking dream
Teddy bears rule!
[Series I to infinity –
I am a Scott]
Catterline
Where Joan once painted vast skies disappearing into distant seas:
along the pebbled shore we wandered and blethered.
In The Creel we had lunch:
I chose cod, you chose sole.
Lunch, as it always seems to do,
provided us a further opportunity to explore the world!
By the warmth of the burning fire,
In the rationed light of winter,
we could still see and feel the colour of past summers’.
Leaving The Creel we set off in The Rebel explorer
[it is Series II, you know]
to look for a long since forgotten cliff-top village.
By Kinneff church we came to a halt:
what a Jewel of place,
surrounded by sad, leaning stones
that generations ago,
were tended with love.
Here, we shared our unbelief: monumental and otherwise.
One tombstone caught Peter’s eye –
not for what it said,
but for the unusual typeface inscribed by hand:
Bending down, almost kneeling, to look closer,
we talked about Alasdair.
Here, for some, or no reason;
The Keeper was with us
[even if the very idea of this is nothing but imaginary]
it is still, a beautiful idea.
A comforting idea, as invisible as angels
that we do not believe in.
Catterline:
What we had that day was our story.
The music of the Abbey
I returned today
to the Abbey,
30 years since
your daughter
married my magical friend.
Time has passed
and you are now a
great-grandfather
to a wonderful choir.
I felt the presence of absence
and absence of presence,
as I entered the Abbey once again,
George, neither you nor your choir were there,
but the beautiful music of the past,
never silent in my mind
played again.
LOST
Glenbardy:
my hairt fair beats for Sian
Carmichael:
where Sandy magically reached out to me
Asloss:
together with Rab, a friend of Liberty
Random street:
where Richard’s stories moved me to tears
Abbotsford:
hame of a Rebel and part-timer [time passes, listen]
Dust:
the big braw cosmos.
Wunderkammer
Today has been wunderkammer,
a day where one idea inspired another.
I began this poem yesterday.
WATERLOO
‘Today seems not indifferent to yesterday‘
so Big Ted said to me
as we set off on another wee adventure
[I think that he was talking about the weather,
but I may have misheard him,
as the Land Rover we travel in is noisy]
[It is also 64 years old and the milometer has clocked again].
Today [not indifferent to yesterday]
we set off for Waterloo.
Yes, WATERLOO!
No, not the battle site,
but a former fairm
remote in the Scottish Heilan’s!
On oor Caledonian adventures,
Big Ted refers to me as Sancho Panza, we are, after all
the kind, as people say
who like to go on adventures.
And the more madcap the better!
It was a fair trek to Waterloo,
but hill aifter hill made
beauty of the distance.
Oor adventure felt like an ‘art’ of farewell.
Finally, we reached Waterloo:
sweaty and puggled,
we found it to be:
the faintest, lightest, nearly not there.
Stanes rickles, jist ankle high, were all that summed up
existence.
Miss Garden heads North
On a quiet Sunday in June, we took the road North.
Led only by curiosity and serendipity,
a happen-chance finding in a faded Green book of history.
Miss Garden, your story is beautiful:
unglimpsed by today,
your memories are nowhere.
Crows now roost in the roofless ruin of your Strichen hame.
The grand Doric-pillared entrance portico
has been replaced by a
lean-too, corrugated iron ‘palace’ to shelter the fairmer’s coos.
Miss Garden, you will be glad to hear:
that your ancient Horse Chestnut tree still grows,
but weary with age,
it now rests its limbs on the ground.
This tree is a migrant through time.
If only it could tell the beautiful stories of Strichen.
It was a quiet Sunday in June,
we had followed the road North.
That day, we were part of the story.
FORNETHY
The woodland is dark.
I won’t go there again.
A lingering scent of childhood despair visibly threatens.
Fornethy.
Darkly secreted in the forest.
A grand house once full of ‘Adam fireplaces’,
bedecked with Miss Coats Fabergé eggs.
On her death, Miss Coats, bequeathed her house to the children of Paisley.
In beautiful patterns of colour, they came to stay at Fornethy,
for a country retreat.
But woodland is dark.
The ‘school’ is now all boarded-up.
Window Tax abuse.
The futures of children.
Fornethy. Now the abode of 24 hour security surveillance.
BEWARE.
D I S B L A I R
More beautiful than any dolls house
this ancient place,
forever in sympathy with its
setting.
Here, Old Machar became new.
Here, a central feathered granite stairway
welcomes guests
through Abergeldie doorways:
‘we met yesterday said the room’.
Such persistence of old takes stamina:
no bumpy approach track could contest!
Talk about the Art of transition!
Tillybin would understand:
– drums beat
– nights fly
stars are gloriously free.
DUNBAR’S CLOSE
He planted that garden with
flair, imagination,
maybe even nostalgia.
How is he that gentle gardener?
This poem is for Seamus Filor, who was one of my tutors when I studied Landscape Architecture with the University of Edinburgh.
Tuesday afternoons at Bannockburn.
Those Tuesday afternoons.
friends
to our friendship.
old walled garden Tuesday afternoons.
learning from one another –
our growth is borderless.
HARRIET
Harriet, impossible as it is,
you led me to
Corriemuckloch.
You died so young, so long ago
but your childhood vivacity
hangs on in there
above the Newliston stairway.
Harriet, tonight I am here, in
Corriemuckloch.
It was here that your Aunty Lilias died
on her way to Kenmore.
Today, by the Quaich, I travelled to Kenmore.
Your portrait was in my mind.
Art, beautiful art, lives beyond us.
Duff lives
Big Ted suggested
a visit to Strathbraan.
Big Ted wondered about
longevity.
At the ford over the Braan,
just beyond the gate to Ballinloan,
a kindly farmer greeted us.
We explained our madcap adventure –
to chalk letters of longevity
on the ruins of his farm.
The kindly farmer smiled
and together we crossed the Braan.
at CORRIEMUCKLOCH
Big Ted said to me:
‘Perhaps we are learning from life in a different way?’
I replied to Big Ted:
‘It is the adventurous who are shy’.
At Corriemuckloch, I fell asleep,
I dreamt of my children, they asked me:
‘Daddy, why do you use those different colours of chalk?’
Upper Tullochgrue
Iron roofs, haemoglobin red
drew me bodily
to you.
Rothiemurchus, the womb
Lairig Ghru, that vital umbilicus.
a beautiful wilderness, your ‘confinement’.
Cecilia, ‘in danger of collapse’
I arrived late:
MANDATE 25/00781 had been ‘implemented’.
John Dudley Sandeman: Lost in the view
For two years they searched.
You were found
on the
watershed:
Bealach an Amais
‘Pass of the Find’.
For two years, the Landscape Held You.
Lost in the view.
In your rucksack,
Volume 19 of
‘The Great Lives of the Voyagers’
That your father had given you as you set out
for the mountains.
John, we went to the same school
But our friendship,
as with Simon,
is almost mythical.
Like Time itself.
Yesterday, Andrew, my son,
Now older than you [and Simon] when you both died,
Waved to me from
Bealach an Amais.
S P E E D Y
My name is SPEEDY.
I am made of Time.
I was the OLYMPIA
of all OPELS!
I passed you by!
A Rebel adventurer
I have stories
Never to be Told!
What I saw:
Real, wondrous.
I passed you by!
AITEANDORUIS
On a bend
of the river Oykel, with
the best view
of the Kyle of Sutherland!
You stood
on the high watermark
of ‘ordinary’
Spring tides.
Aiteandoruis –
‘the place of the door’
from the moment
I heard of you
I had to visit.
Aiteandoruis –
It did not matter to me
that nothing survives of you,
‘ankle-high’, or
otherwise!
BAUDOLINO said:
‘a door is not a door if it does not have
a building around it’.
Sometimes, I disagree with
metaphors!
Door to door
I visit ruins
seeking the notion
of ‘through’.
In the Kyle of Sutherland
on a bend
in a river
there was a house
with a door.
The Dirlot Angel
I travelled
far North
to finally meet
you.
Quietly to share
my beautiful
misunderstood sister.
She once dazzled
as you did.
Today, lichen
of Caithness,
light-radiant lichen,
gathers on you like Time,
adding to your beauty.
There is something more,
to being an
Angel.
Slaggan Bay
Big Ted was fed up
with all the maps and notes
– that I keep gathering.
So, I promised him
Slaggan Bay
where, wave after wave
would find ‘reality’
and time, illimitable
as the horizon.
Together,
we reached Slaggan Bay,
our wonderful experience
now lost
inside
this poem.
Dundonnell
You died aged sixteen:
a ‘spasm’ of the heart.
Your bones
in a circular place
inside an ancient beech plantation.
Here, adding to the melody of bird song,
I heard your heart beat –
whilst mine faltered.
You died aged sixteen.
Destitution Road
Heading North
– there is always
a further North.
Wandering, further
and further from home,
in nameless, numberless time.
Destitution Road.
GRANVILLE
Yesterday, I chalked your name
In bright colours
On a glacier strewn boulder in Glenglass.
Granville, the last Friday of July 1934,
a proud day for you!
Presented the Glenglass school prize
for ‘Bible Knowledge’!
You grew up to be weel kent
Yer name, Granville, awaes in the
heidlines.
Behavin’ outrageously in Inverness in yer kilt,
day-in-day oot!
Yesterday, I chalked your NAME
In bright colours
on a boulder
In Glenglass.
Fluchlady
Over-the-hills-and-far-awayness
Still roofed, only just
Empty for decades.
No Art is possible
without
a dance with death.
Not Today
But everyday.